Cleverly blends rivalries on and off the golf course with colorful characters as a plucky limo driver takes the wheel again.
A Texas transplant can’t stop tripping over bodies in Ireland.
Megan Malone’s grandfather was Irish, and she retired from Austin to Dublin after 20 years in the U.S. Army. As a driver for the Leprechaun Limousine Service, she’s on assignment with PGA champion Martin Walsh at the Royal Dublin Golf Club when he invites her to watch him play a casual game of golf. That’s when she and Walsh find his best friend and longtime competitor, Lou MacDonald, floating in the pond at the 15th hole. Trained as a medic, Megan splashes into the water to try to save MacDonald, but she’s too late, and the blood on his head makes her realize he didn’t accidentally drown. She calls Detective Paul Bourke, who worked with her in Dead in Dublin (2019). Walsh thinks the blow on the back of MacDonald’s head could have come from a hard-hit golf ball. But he doesn’t know who’d want to kill Lou, a big, gentle man everyone liked. Walsh’s wife, Heather, another pro golfer, takes Lou’s death hard. Lou’s daughter, Saoirse, feels incapable of arranging a wake and a funeral while she’s trying to stop a developer from building on the same island as the golf club. So Megan steps in to help her. The more Megan learns, the less ideal the Walshes’ marriage seems and the more Megan understands Saoirse’s resentment toward them both. And the more Megan entangles herself—even finding another body at the Royal Dublin—the greater her own hazard.
Cleverly blends rivalries on and off the golf course with colorful characters as a plucky limo driver takes the wheel again.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2420-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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